1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tissue sampling or removal system, and methods of sampling or removing tissue from a patient, and more particularly to a system and methods for sampling or removing tissue from a patient which maintains the integrity of the tissue sample.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
It is often desirable and frequently necessary to sample or remove a portion of tissue from humans and other animals, particularly in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cancerous tumors, pre-malignant conditions, and other diseases or disorders. Typically, in the case of cancer, particularly cancer of the breast, there is a great emphasis on early detection and diagnosis through the use of screening modalities, including physical examination, and particularly mammography, which is capable of detecting very small abnormalities, which are often not palpable during physical examination. When a physician establishes by mammography or other screening modality, e.g., ultrasound, that suspicious circumstances exist, a biopsy must be performed to capture tissue for a definitive diagnosis as to whether the suspicious tissue cells in the lesion are cancerous. Biopsy may be done by an open or percutaneous technique. Open biopsy, which is an invasive surgical procedure involving cutting into the suspicious tissue and directly visualizing the target area, removes the entire mass (excisional biopsy) or a part of the mass (incisional biopsy). Percutaneous biopsy, on the other hand, is usually done with a needle-like instrument through a relatively small incision, performed either blindly or with the aid of an imaging device such as ultrasound, MRI, or the like, and may be either a fine needle aspiration (FNA) or a core biopsy. In FNA biopsy, individual cells or clusters of cells are obtained for cytologic examination and may be prepared such as in a Papanicolaou smear. In core biopsy, as the term suggests, a core or fragment of tissue is obtained for histologic examination which may be done via a frozen section or paraffin section.
The type of biopsy utilized depends in large part on circumstances present with respect to the patient, including the location of the lesion(s) within the body, and no single procedure is ideal for all cases. However, core biopsy is extremely useful in a number of conditions and is being used more frequently by the medical profession.
To arrive at a definitive tissue diagnosis, intact tissue is needed from an organ or lesion within the body. In most instances, only part of the organ or lesion need be sampled. However, the portions of tissue obtained must be representative of the organ or lesion as a whole. In the past, to obtain tissue from organs or lesions within the body, surgery had to be performed to locate, identify and remove the tissue. With the advent of medical imaging equipment (x-rays and fluoroscopy, computed tomography, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, and magnetic resonance imaging) it became possible to identify small abnormalities even deep within the body. However, definitive tissue characterization still requires obtaining adequate tissue samples to characterize the histology of the organ or lesion.
For example, mammography can identify non-palpable (not perceptible by touch) breast abnormalities earlier than they can be diagnosed by physical examination. Most non-palpable breast abnormalities are benign; some of them are malignant. When breast cancer is diagnosed before it becomes palpable, breast cancer mortality can be reduced. However, it is often difficult to determine if pre-palpable breast abnormalities are malignant, as some benign lesions have mammographic features which mimic malignant lesions and some malignant lesions have mammographic features which mimic benign lesions. Thus, mammography has its limitations. To reach a definitive diagnosis, tissue from within the breast must be removed and examined under a microscope. Prior to the late 1980""s, reaching a definitive tissue diagnosis for non-palpable breast disease required a mammographically guided localization, either with a wire device, visible dye, or carbon particles, followed by an open, surgical biopsy utilizing one of these guidance methods to lead the surgeon to the non-palpable lesion within the breast.
A very successful type of image guided percutaneous core breast biopsy instrument currently available is vacuum-assisted automatic core biopsy device. One such successful biopsy device is shown and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,822 to Burbank et al, which is expressly incorporated by reference herein. This device, known commercially as the MAMMOTOME(trademark) Biopsy System, which is available from Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., a division of Johnson and Johnson, has the capability to actively capture tissue prior to cutting the tissue. Active capture allows for sampling through non-homogeneous tissues. The device is comprised of a disposable probe, a motorized drive unit, and an integrated vacuum source. The probe is made of stainless steel and molded plastic and is designed for collection of multiple tissue samples with a single insertion of the probe into the breast. The tip of the probe is configured with a laterally-disposed sampling notch for capturing tissue samples. Orientation of the sample notch is directed by the physician, who uses a thumbwheel to direct tissue sampling in any direction about the circumference of the probe. A hollow cylindrical cutter severs and transports the tissue samples to a tissue collection chamber for later testing.
While this type of system functions very well as a core biopsy device, there are occasions when it may be useful to have the capability of acquiring a relatively large intact tissue sample. One such core biopsy device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,928, to Kornberg et al, also expressly incorporated in its entirety by reference herein. In the device disclosed by Komberg et al., a tissue receiving port is disposed at the distal end of the device and is oriented longitudinally. A disadvantage of this type of device, however, is the inability to acquire a tissue sample having a cross-section larger than that of the cannula through which the sample will be removed. Additionally, it is difficult, using such a device, which obtains cylindrical shaped specimens, to determine whether an entire lesion of interest is being removed or whether a further procedure will be necessary. This is particularly true because most lesions of interest are typically spherical in shape, having a diameter of approximately 1 cm. The only way one can tell whether the entire lesion has been removed using the Kornberg technique is to remove and examine the specimen, determine whether each of the margins of the specimen is xe2x80x9cclean,xe2x80x9d meaning that there is no evidence of lesion, or xe2x80x9cdirty,xe2x80x9d meaning that legion tissue is evident right to the edge of the specimen. Of course, if one or more specimen margins is xe2x80x9cdirty,xe2x80x9d it is almost a certainty that a portion of the lesion remains in the patient, and if the biopsy test results on the lesion are positive, a further surgical procedure will be indicated.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/057,303, priority to which is claimed herein, discloses apparatuses and methods for precisely isolating a target lesion, resulting in a high likelihood of xe2x80x9ccleanxe2x80x9d margins about the lesion. This advantageously will often result in the ability to both diagnose and treat a malignant lesion with only a single percutaneous procedure, with no followup percutaneous or surgical procedure required, while minimizing the risk of migration of possibly cancerous cells from the lesion to surrounding tissue or the bloodstream. Various tissue acquisition instrument embodiments are disclosed for segmenting the target tissue, including embodiments wherein the instrument comprises a cutting element which is extendable radially outwardly and movable circumferentially to define a peripheral margin about a tissue sample, and other embodiments wherein the cutting element is extendable radially outwardly and movable axially to define peripheral margins about the tissue sample.
According to a first exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a tissue acquisition device useful in retrieving tissue samples from a patient comprises an inner cannula having a proximal end, a distal end, and a longitudinal axis extending between said proximal and distal ends, said inner cannula including a tubular sidewall, a main lumen extending along said longitudinal axis from said proximal end toward said distal end, a small lumen extending longitudinally through said sidewall from said proximal end toward said distal end, and a cutout in said sidewall distal of said small lumen; an outer cannula having a proximal end, a distal end, and a longitudinal axis extending between said proximal and distal ends, said outer cannula including a tubular sidewall, a main lumen extending along said longitudinal axis from said proximal end toward said distal end, and a cutout in said sidewall; a cutting wire positioned in said small lumen, said cutting wire having a proximal end and a distal end and being rotatable and longitudinally extendable in said small lumen, said cutting wire including a cutting loop at a said distal end which extends out of said small lumen; wherein said inner cannula is positioned in said outer cannula main lumen with said inner cannula cutout positioned at the same longitudinal position as said outer cannula cutout.
According to a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a system for sampling tissue from a patient comprises xcex94 a radio frequency (RF) energy generator capable of generating RF energy, and a tissue acquisition device as described above, said cutting wire of said tissue acquisition device in electrical communication with said RF energy generator.
According to a third exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method of sampling tissue from a patient comprises the steps: inserting a cannula into tissue of a patient, said cannula including a pair of concentric cannulae each having a cutout therein, said cannula including a RF energy cutting loop in said cannula; cutting said tissue along a plane by moving said RF energy cutting loop from a position inside said cannula to a position outside said cannula while applying RF energy to said RF energy cutting loop; cutting said tissue by moving said RF energy cutting loop along a first path extending partially along the length of said cannula while applying RF energy to said RF energy cutting loop; and cutting said tissue along a plane perpendicular to said path by moving said RF energy cutting loop.
According to a fourth exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a tissue acquisition device useful in retrieving tissue samples from a patient comprises a generally cylindrical cannula having a longitudinal axis and a cutout, an electrically energized cutting wire loop arranged generally in a plane substantially parallel to said cannula longitudinal axis, said loop being rotatable about a loop axis which extends generally parallel to said cannula longitudinal axis, said loop axis being offset from said cannula longitudinal axis, whereby, upon rotation of said loop about said loop axis, said loop moves from a location within said cannula to a location extending through said cutout.
Still other objects, features, and attendant advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a reading of the following detailed description of embodiments constructed in accordance therewith, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.